Month: December 2009

GLENDALE, Az. — Caught up with the team just now and have a couple things to pass along.

It’ll be Thomas Greiss in goal tonight. Players didn’t get to the hotel until 2:15 a.m. or so and Todd McLellan indicated he simply thinks there’s no reason to go with Evgeni Nabokov for a third time in four days.

I also came down to do a notebook item on the line that McLellan reunited last night — Manny Malhotra, Scott Nichol and Jed Ortmeyer, who formed a pretty effective combination when they were together earier this season and looked good again against the Capitals.

Only I find out the line won’t be starting tonight’s game. Instead, it’ll be Malhotra, Ortmeyer and Torrey Mitchell. That leaves a fourth line of Nichol, Frazer McLaren and Jamie McGinn. Continue Reading →

GLENDALE, Az. –The Sharks schedule has not been kind to me this holiday season. Thankgsiving in Edmonton, New Year’s Eve in the desert. Wait — there is the tradeoff of holiday pay so maybe I should stop whining.

No morning skate today – makes sense to me, no? – and while that means no update yet as far as tonight’s game goes, it does leave me a little time for some mop-up coverage on that oddity-filled 5-2 victory over Washington last night.

So while I can’t address which Olympic goalie will be in nets for the Sharks or whether Jay Leach will see action, I can look backward:

****That Ryane Clowe penalty shot rightfully belonged to Dan Boyle. After all, it was Boyle who was sent to the box for holding Nicklas Backstrom and it should have been Boyle jumping over the boards and being hauled down from behind seconds later.

The Sharks have four players on Team Canada’s 23-man roster and unless I’ve missed something, that’s a first.

Dan Boyle, Dany Heatley, Patrick Marleau and Joe Thornton were all named to Team Canada in announcements just concluded that were carried on the NHL Network.

NHL players have been participating in the Olympics since 1998 and several NHL teams have had three players on the roster. The Tampa Bay Lightning had Martin St. Louis, Vincent LeCavalier and Brad Richards — plus Boyle on the taxi squad.

Expect a lot of outrage from Calgary over the fact none of their three D-man candidates — Dion Phaneuf, Jay Boumeister or Robyn Regher were named to the team.

Needed to do things a little differently today and focus on the story for tomorrow’s print edition that looks at, among other things, the relationship between Evgeni Nabokov and Alexander Ovechkin. Hence, the late posting.

The Caps flew cross-country, then skated at 2 p.m. at HP Pavilion so I pretty much camped out there myself. And since I didn’t have anything major to contribute here, switched priorities around a little. Should be back to normal tomorrow.

The one thing I need to mention right away: All those references here and elsewhere on the web to Team Canada’s roster being announced on New Year’s Eve? Wrong.

Those names come out at 9 a.m. tomorrow morning, according to hockeycanada.ca — a pretty reliable source when it comes to that country’s Olympic program.

Not sure how things got all turned around, but we should find out a little earlier if indeed all four Sharks under serious consideration — Joe Thornton, Dany Heatley, Patrick Marleau and Danny Boyle — are heading to Vancouver. Continue Reading →

No changes in the forwards lines at the start of tonight’s game against Phoenix with Jed Ortmeyer once again practicing this morning with Joe Pavelski and Ryane Clowe. That leaves things:

Marleau-Thornton-Heatley

Clowe-Pavelski-Ortmeyer

Malhotra-Nichol-McGinn

McLaren-Mitchell-Setoguchi

As far as the defensemen, I did notice that Jay Leach was practicing a couple drills alongside Jason Demers. When I asked Todd McLellan if he might go with a different look on the blue line tonight, he was non-committal. Continue Reading →

Team Canada gives its players a heads-up with a phone call a few hours before the public announcement of its roster.

Not Team Sweden.

So the first Douglas Murray knew that he’d be going to the Olympics in February was at 5:30 a.m. this morning, when his parents — who are visiting here and staying with him at his Santana Row condo — went online, saw the news and woke him up.

Murray gave his parents the green light to do that because “I knew they couldn’t hold off” and would be checking.

His parents didn’t even have to say anything for Murray to know he had made the team.

“I could see on their face that it was clear what it was for right away,” he said. Continue Reading →

Most morning skates on game day are simply a chance for the players to loosen up. A little passing, a little shooting, some odd-man rushes — but no heavy lifting.

Understandably, things were a little different this morning as the Sharks were getting ready for tonight’s game against Anaheim. Not that anything got too combative, but the drill lasted almost a full 30 minutes and there was a little more contact than usual.

“Three days off is something we needed and something everybody desires at this time of the year,” Coach Todd McLellan explained. “Obviously we spent some family time, but now it’s back to work. And to go into the battles without having experienced them for three days, I don’t think was a good idea.

“So we spent a little more time in practice and I’m sure they’ll do the same thing,” he added, referring to the Ducks. “You’ll probably see 30 teams doing that today.”

Defenseman Rob Blake said it was more about getting guys mentally engaged than any of the light physical contact. Continue Reading →

Even worse, they say it’s canceled because of bad weather in Chicago and you’re in Chicago and there is no rain, sleet or snow falling from the skies. Nada. No ice on the runways either.

The weather is supposed to turn ugly later in the day, but your 10 a.m. flight — and several others to the Bay Area and Texas — seems to have been grounded by the ANTICIPATION of bad weather, not the bad weather itself.

Now you and, oh, thousands of others, are all competing for available space on flights that have none.

Welcome to my world today.

The good news is I’m back in my comfortable hotel room near the airport and, after some maneuvering and begging, booked on the same flight tomorrow.

CHICAGO — Hockey players and coaches say they don’t make excuses, but beat writers don’t have to play by those rules. So here are my excuses why it’s taken this long for the daily update.

The plane was stuck in Dallas an extra 90 minutes because of snow in Chicago. The Sharks didn’t have a game-day skate. The Internet connection in the hotel was down. I was functioning on less than three hours of sleep and getting a few more ZZZZZs was a higher priority than pounding these keys. The expressway crawl to the rink took longer than usual.

All that said …

Evgeni Nabokov will be in goal tonight. So will Cristobal Huet, who’s pitched a pair of shutouts in his last two games for the Hawks.

And Todd McLellan will keep Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau and Dany Heatley together until the coach thinks he needs to shake things up once again.

One last tidbit: I asked McLellan if he planned to use that 7-2 thumping as a pre-game motivator.

DALLAS — First, a very heartfelt thank-you to the NHL schedule maker for keeping the Sharks (and me) out of that East Coast snowstorm. Weather in Dallas is a dry, 65 degrees and believe me it can get a lot worse here in December.

Now, back to hockey:

The Sharks may have won their last game, but Coach Todd McLellan doesn’t want his team — or anybody else — to think of that five-game losing streak as the distant past.

“We haven’t erased that,” McLellan said of the streak during which his team went 0-2-3 before beating Anaheim 4-1 last Thursday. “We’ve had one win. That’s it. We’re on a one-game streak, that’s all we have.

“We talked to the players about that. We’re not out of the woods. We have to get going here. We’ve got two opportunities to put ourselves in a good position before the Christmas break and we need to take advantage of them.”

While their light schedule has enabled the Sharks to both practice on the ice and spend extra time reviewing video, what’s been lacking is what McLellan describes as game rhythm. Continue Reading →